Scientists Build Scrabble Playing Robot

Researchers from ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute) in Taiwan have built a scrabble playing robot. ITRI's robotic developers integrated AI, 3D vision recognition, and eye-hand coordination technologies to build the robot. The robot also learns from experience. ITRI was a CES 2018 Innovation Awards honoree for the intelligent vision system it developed that helps the scrabble bot play.

The robot can be seen playing Scrabble in the video below. The game is played with a companion app that keeps track of scores and turns. The robot waits like a praying mantis as its human opponent completes a turn.

The video also shows how to the robot sees the board and how it quickly determines what word to play for the maximum score. The robot grabs and plays Scrabble tiles with its forcep-like hands that are perfect for holding tiles. Take a look: